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Even in 1983 the recruitment of Choir members in some inner City Churches was becoming increasingly difficult.
The following is an actual report written by the Organist and Choirmaster of one such Church
Names have been removed to protect the privacy of the individuals concerned.
| | CHOIR REPORT TO PARISH CHURCH COUNCIL | | |
I welcome the opportunity to put the current situation with regard to the
choir before you this evening. |
You will, I'm sure, have noticed that the choir is now low in membership. For many years now we have been losing people annually on such a scale that recruitment has not kept pace. There was a large exodus during the final year of ............ incumbency during which the number of boys was reduced from thirty to eighteen. This number has never been made up. The gentlemen were similarly reduced in strength. Every year our losses through broken voices, moving on to university, moving away from ........... , joining the cathedral choir, domestic crises, and so on, have taken their toll. During the past fourteen months, eighteen people have left for the forgoing reasons; only three newcomers have taken their places. In the boys' ranks, one of the most constant sources of departure - apart from the broken voices - has been the cathedral choir, which this year takes its forty-third boy off my hands. |
| | The search for new members has been pretty constant throughout the years; and untill two years ago we had maintained a practical working number. The choir is now much lower in numbers giving no leaway for incompetence or absenteeism. During the past year I have written to schools, spoken to headmasters and mistresses, addressed myself to school music teachers, spoken to private music teachers, inserted advertisments in music shops, and made every possible personal contact with parents on the subject. From this sort of approach I suppose I get on average about 2 or maybe three boys a year. The Vicar puts announcements for us on the service paper, draws attention to the choirs' needs from the pulpit, addressing not only our regular congregation, but also carol service congregations and so on. Again this produces only one or two voices a year, if that. Indirect publicity over the years through radio or TV broadcasts, photographs in the press, and so on, has never produced a single recruit. Looking through the records of years past, direct press advertisments - and have been several - have only ever produced one volunteer. |
| In my contact with people I find that the most constant reason given for not joining the choir is that it involves too much time on Sundays. Parents of boys, and prospective gentlemen singers, all turn down the choir on the basis that the Sunday commitment is far too great - twice on Sunday and for forty six weeks in a year - whereas the midweek practices never prove an objection. Ten or fifteen years ago none of these reasons were apparent ; but times have changed as we all know. This is borne out over the years in that we nearly always have 100% attendance at choir practices but only rarely achieve this on Sundays. (next Sunday evening when we have our passiontide music will doubtless be one of those occasions). Another objection allied to this one, is that being a city centre church, very few people live within walking distance, most have to come by car. Indeed one of our members does a 64 mile round trip each time he attends. In theory this would mean nearly 9,000 miles a year. Needless to say he only comes two-thirds of the time. There was a three year period during which one of our members travelled all the way from Ilford each weekend. The choir hardly provides the stimulus for this sort of enthusiasm now. By far the majority of men and boys have always come as a result
of the personal contact of the singers themselves. Johnny brings his brother ; Mr Jones knows another bass. This is how all choirs tends to work. The smaller the choir, the fewer contacts of this sort. |
| | Currently, we have an unusual problem amongst the boys in that the two most senior boys, both with strong voices, are extremely poor readers - one being almost dislexic. I arranged for this lad to receive private music lessons - which went on for a year and a half. Not only can he still not read a note of music, but he cannot follow it either. This means that everything he now knows has been learnt by rote from former senior boys. The chances of this lad learning anything new, now that he has the strongest voice and all look to him for leadership, are remote. Only a small percentage of our present boys have either the intelligence or the vocal ability required for serious choir work ; yet I'm obliged to take all who come - both men and boys - and then work a miracle and " make silk purses out of sows ' ears." |
| | No choir will thrive on a repertoire which fails to introduce new material regularly. And yet we are already hard pressed to maintain our present annual repertoire let alone introduce anything new. Our present alto department of two singers has great difficulty and has to do homework some weeks in order to cope at all. It can readily be understood that there must be considerable musical frustration for certain more able members.. Those adults who travel many miles are seriously questioning whether it is worthwhile continuing. After all, would you travel 64 miles to sing a one minute anthem that you've sung twenty times before ? |
| | This raises another question , namely that choirmembers must feel a sense of attraction not only to the music, but to the choirmaster, clergy , forms of service and the church life generally. If it is thought that these things don't matter, they can probably all worship God in their own parish churches. If the sole attraction is the music, then not only is the spirit all wrong, but one is walking a tight-rope ; for if the music no longer attracts, what then ? |
| This is the position we now face. My own powers of persuasion are stretched to their utmost capacity and I am warned that there will be a further exodus at the end of July, leaving us with possibly no bases at most services. Such a situation will mean that the choir is finished and the remaining adults will leave also.
If such a catastrophe is to be avoided, obviously an influx of new members is essential. One of the greatest stumbling blocks here is that I am criticised for being over pessimistic. Next Sunday for instance, its almost a foregone conclusion that someone in the congregation will say " It sounds fine to me, I don't know what all the fuss is about." But to continue , it is no use at all having only one or two members, for we need at least three altos, two tenore, four bassrs, and a dozen boys. If we do not get these sort of minimal numbers, then we lose most of those we already have, including possibly our assistant organist. |
| In the light of previous experience stretching over twenty years, I cannot see that for this church, isolated in the city centre, it can be done. The Cathedral organist came up with a new suggestion to the vicar the other day, and this has produced just one boy. But where do we find the willing and able men ? They exist , but they will not come for the reasons I've just outlined.
What then can be done ? |
| First of all, why not have ladies ? Well again the degree of Sunday commitment is against it. There is no longer a congregational tradition of attending two or three Sunday services.
The Salvation Army Songsters do it in their city centre Citadel ; but then they have a tradition of full family commitment to the whole of Sunday, both morning , afternoon and evenings. Besides in many ways the shortage of boys is nothing like as serious as the shortage of men. Note however, that I should be delighted of some twenty or thirty girls age 16 and upwards. If girls and ladies had been at all interested we would have had a better voluntary choir ; but this too has shrunk to almost nothing.
If one is realistic about this there are only one or two possible remedies |
| First if the number of Sunday visits were reduced, I suppose we might find that new members would feel able to join. Although I would point out that with amateur singers , and young boys in particular, it is only the regular frequent performance that gets them going at all.
Secondly; we could have no regular choir at all and let all Sung Services become purely congregational. This would not be as bad as it sounds - especially when we have the new organ - for after all, no one could say that yesterdays Family Service suffered much by not having a choir.. We do have many such Services throughout the year. We could then form an ad hoc choir for two or three Big annual occasions, and we could go to town much more with regard to visiting choirs and other groups and soloists. Matins and Evensong congregations would be the main sufferers - although for myself , I find that reading a psalm antiphonally is often much more meaningful than singing it in an indifferent manner. Perhaps the new organ could be used Continental fashion and take a more liturgical role in the music of the church. The possibilities here could be quite exciting introducing something new to ........... church goes. |
| The third possibility is that we pay for a professional choir of say four to eight trained singers to be in attendance, say twice a month and for all special occasions - I think we could not afford more. Twenty fours visits or so a year would then cost the church about £1.000 for eight singers, or half that for four ( supposing that we paid each person five pounds a time ). This is what the majority of the London City Churches do, and with great success. I think that there are enough such singers in ............ to make this a viable proposition.
I do not know that there are any other really practical solutions.
END
© UK Cathedral Music Links 2007 |
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